1.08.2011

La casta de los centauros / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Lineage of the Centaurs

The provincial woman, of grave and novice youth, refers to the adventures and dangers of the plains, where she was born and raised. The black hair accentuates the pale face and demands a crown of narcotic flowers.
     She evokes, dressed in white, the image of a torrid climate and the refreshment of its palm trees. Her hand has posed on a sphinx’s forehead and has registered venerable parchments in the asylum of a sanctuary, beneath the sparkle of an alabaster lamp.
     Her voice has sung a nostalgic aria in which a deleterious river merges with the sea, and some bluebirds chirp without relief or refuge on the willow banks.
     The maiden requires an imaginary scene. The favored one speaks in the patio of songs and musical parties, beside a fountain guarded by the bronze effigies of insurgent lions, and insists upon the treasures guarded by griffins, beyond the asperity of the sand dunes, where the centennial hermits live and grieve; and an Ethiopian slave girl interrupts the story to celebrate the delicious air, filled with the scent of myrtles.
     The maiden refers to the fate of the plains, the events of her horsemanship by the glow of an interminable twilight. Her figure, on the horse with resolute gallop, should be carved into the pediment of a gentilitious temple.




Las formas del fuego (1929)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }

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